Stillwater Fly Fishing with Competition-Inspired Strategies

Devin Olsen, well known for his innovative river and stream techniques, reveals his top stillwater competition and loch-style strategies from his travels around the world. Discover how to elevate your fishing game with these proven, competition-inspired tactics you can apply to your local stillwaters. Don't miss this chance to learn from one of the best and transform your fishing effectiveness!

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Welcome
a internet radio, your source for learning more
about 5 fishing and cold water, warm water
and saltwater.
Hello. I'm Roger Memes. Your host for tonight's
show. On this broadcast will be featuring Devin
Olson, and he'll be answering your questions on
still water fly fishing. This show will be
90 minutes in the length and we're broadcasting
log over the Internet. If you'd like to

(00:28):
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(00:50):
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(01:12):
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(01:33):
fishing. When we return, we'll be talking with
Demos olson about still want our fly fishing.
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(02:16):
Again, that's ep p fly dot com.
Before we introduce Devin, I'd like to let
you know about the great prizes we have
to give away tonight. For our drawing tonight
we'll be giving a 1 year membership to
fly fishers international, and a 1 year membership
to t unlimited. Now, if you haven't registered
yet for the drawing. You can do so
now. Just go to our homepage. And ask
about 5 fishing dot com and look for

(02:36):
the link under devin section that says register
for our free drawing. Click on that link
and fill out form and we'll announce the
winners at the end of the show. We'll
also be giving away a copy of Devin
book still water fly efficient competition, inspired strategies
for everyday English. Now here's how you can
win. This is courtesy has staffed all books
by the way, an excellent publisher of many,

(02:57):
many book on fly.
So check them out at stack dot com.
We also have a link to Devin book
on our homepage. If you'd like to look
at it Eric, But here's how you can
win it tonight, and you just have to
be the first person
to answer the question, I ask at the
end of the show. And the question will
be about something a devon and I have
talk about during the show. So take good

(03:18):
notes. Dive fast, and maybe you'll be the
proud winner of Devin new, still water fly
fishing competitions inspired
strategies for everyday Anglers.
Our guest tonight is Devin Olson.
Devin started by fishing in Yellowstone at age
9 within a couple of years at became
an addiction he could not shake, and he
begged for rides to local streams until he

(03:40):
could drive. He started competing at age 19
and made my fishing team Usa, in 2006
when he was 21 years old. He has
competed in many world fly fishing championships
since then and he has earned several individual
and team metals from these championships.
Away from competitive fishing, he holds the batch,
degree in ecology and a master's degree in

(04:01):
fisheries science. He worked as a fisheries biologist
for several years before starting, his company tactical
fly fisher. He has produced 2 inspection films,
modern N, European inspire techniques and modern N
elevated beyond the basics. An authored book tactical
fly fishing lessons learned from
competition for all English. And now his most

(04:23):
recent book, the water fishing as we just
talked about. Devin, welcome back to ask about
fly fishing Internet radio.
Oh, thanks, Roger. Glad to be back.
Yeah. Glad to have you back. It's always
a pleasure, and I just wanted to, let's
see here.
Check something.

(04:43):
Let's see.
See when the first
show we did together because we've done a
few now.
And I'm always anxious to talk to you
about what you've been up to next.
But it looks like first show
2000
than February 2017.
So folks just
you know, like what Devon does and says

(05:05):
and teachers, Check out the other shows we've
done with him. We've done euro style, euro
style part 2,
lock style and competitive fly fishing. So 4
shows that I've been with Devin. So after
tonight, you'll have plenty of more
education from Devon, and he's always a great.
So Yes. Welcome back. Well, you just returned

(05:25):
from another my fishing championship. Right?
Yeah. Yeah It was my fourteenth.
I'm now old part on the team.
Oh, I. Yeah. Yeah. It's
Well, he's still have a young looking face,
so see you can pass it for younger.
Yeah Yeah. Well. I'm
I'm nearing that. D turnover to 40, but

(05:48):
I haven't quite gotten there yet. But when
I was surrounded with
a whole bunch of team members that were
in their twenties and early thirties, and, you
know, now I am officially the old part
on the teams. So You're,
officially. Alright. Did they give you a medal
for that or any thing
or no.
So, you know.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, can I give

(06:10):
us an overview, you know I mean, because
tonight, we're talking about still water fishing in
your latest book, and part of that title
is, you know, competition inspired strategies?
So tell us, kinda give us an overview
of what the championship was like this year.
Where you were, what the waters were like,
and then, you know, maybe some lessons learned.
And then maybe focus specifically on the still

(06:32):
water at, you know, aspect of the competition.
So we'd love to hear about that.
Sure. Well, if People want kind of a
full breakdown. After every world championship, I typically
do a session review of every single session.
So I just finished my last 1, I
think yesterday or the day before.
So I have all 5 sessions that I

(06:52):
finished and a breakdown of... Pretty much the
play by play of everything I did and
the lessons that I learned in every session
or things
Feel I did or didn't do well. So
if people wanna go read those, I can
find it in the blog post tab on
our website it's tactical Fly fisher. But,
we were in France this year in the
P.
And
that area... Well, France in general is known

(07:13):
is just an incredibly difficult
country efficient.
The rivers and the lakes there from what
I saw.
They get a fair amount of pressure. There's
also a lot of
catch keep pressure. So kinda through the years,
the fish that have survived, that catch keep
pressure,
whether it's been some artificial selection or just

(07:35):
the strain of brown trout that happens to
be there, the fish that are left are
incredibly wary. They're extremely difficult to catch.
They're not terribly large as well, which
most people would think that would make them
easier. It's the opposite
because
most smaller fish tend to be a lot
more agile than larger fish. So you get
takes from them. They can take and reject

(07:57):
fly, even
more quickly than a a large fish can
and by a long shot.
So
you've never fished for such difficult 8 to
10 inch brown trout. I'll just put it
that. Wow.
They were
incredibly
incredibly tough. Before this year, I'd had never
thought about using 7 Raid x on lakes
before.

(08:18):
And I used
x on on these lakes and felt like
I had Rope. They were so incredibly
raid they would inspect your flies
more so than the toughest tail water shot
I've ever seen in... Or toughest spring screenshot
or whatever you wanna, yeah. Whatever you wanna,
you know, whatever analogy you wanna to have
of the toughest

(08:38):
river like you've ever fished in the states,
these fish were every bit is tough and
tougher. They would come up and
I had a several in 1 lake. I
had 4 or 5 brown trout come up
and look at my size 20 and 22
shuttle cock drive fly and inspect it from
all 4 angles.
Before
finally just swimming off.
Off. So oh jeez. Yeah. Yeah. So they

(09:00):
were
very, very tough
And so I guess the main license from
the championship. We're just
sometimes
you really have to push the envelope in
terms of Finesse. And
ultra light
gear and tactics.
I...
The field, and the world championships as well,
I would say in the last 10 years

(09:21):
has made great strides across the board from
the strongest to the weakest countries and,
basically becoming
as
ultra light and finesse approach does as you
can get, and it's made it. So
everybody has gotten a lot better. And everybody
is... Tends to be more successful in

(09:42):
sessions, which makes the later sessions that much
more difficult because once those fish have been
pest, you know, in the first and second
and third sessions, then those forth and tip
sessions get really hard.
Because those fish issues. They're
fishing the while and alert.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you. The same pieces of
water gets fished for 5 days in a
row and by the... By the fourth and

(10:03):
fifth days, they get awfully awesome.
Yeah. Yeah. And
yeah. I I assume reenter entering too. I
was watching... Some of the videos on, you
know, once you guys catch something and gotta
it run to the shore. Right? To get
it...
Yeah. Yeah. After you bearing good
with you bring a fish to, you know,
in the water to the controller and then
you quickly measure it before it's released and

(10:25):
has to...
At least be 20 centimeters a larger account.
But but on the lakes getting back to
that, Yeah. I would say in general,
it was a more finesse based, more
technical based kind small fly approach than I've...
Really ever had on lakes in in a
championship before.
We were fishing these high Mountain lakes and

(10:47):
the P there. These chains of them kind
of, you know, small gl glacier lakes. Similar
to what you might find here in the
Western United States and some of our
mountain ranges that have a lot of high
mountain lakes,
except that these were pretty much all wild
brown trout. There were some wild rainbows in
the car lakes,
but it was mainly the Mediterranean strain of

(11:07):
brown trout, and they were all wild, and
there were very high numbers of them in
the lakes. So there was no shortage of
fish. But they were the most spooky, most
kind of hard to catch
on alert fish I've seen in highlights before.
Compared to the the most of the highlights
fishing that we do here in the west.
It was
on an entirely different level. So I ended

(11:29):
up
fishing a lot of small flies. I mean,
a lot of tactics were good crossover
from Highly fishing that you might do here.
You know, lots of
drive fly fishing with ants and small mag,
which that's not uncommon in our highlights lakes
here, but also,
both washing line and or dry and 2
dropper rigs, you know, all on 7 x

(11:52):
and
size 20 and 22 zebra images
below very small drive flies or hung on
a washing line with a dry on and,
none of the, kind of flash year
kind of
a tractor based lure approaches that I talk
about in the book a lot that you
might find in in other, like,

(12:12):
No that was played here. There were very
few people that caught fish
doing what. I referred to in the book
as pulling flies, which is just like, you
know, casting and retrieving pies quickly, which is
a very common approach in a lot of
lakes. But
here, it was it was just not, the
best way to go about it most of
the time, especially when there wasn't much wind,

(12:33):
which monet were apparently don't.
Yeah. Now these fish and the lakes
where they...
Would you call hold overs from stocking in
previous years?
Or were... Don't I don't know the history.
My guess is that originally they were stocked
a long time ago. Just like a lot
of the wild efficient our lakes at home
because I would assume most of these... These

(12:55):
lakes were high up in the car,
and Mh. I would be surprised if there
weren't some barriers to migration that would have,
you know, not prevented them from colonizing those
lakes originally from rivers lower down. But if
they were stock, it was many decades ago.
And... Okay. So they weren't all wild.

(13:15):
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's what I was
kinda getting at, because,
were the streams more
put and take
fisheries in general or...
No. I mean, every a while the that
we figured do the whole championship for wild.
There were no stocks. Okay.
It was all wild, but still...
Had a lot of catch key pressure in

(13:35):
those rivers, for instance.
Vic River that we were on.
I was told by the locals there that
they have a 10 fish limit
on that river. And Oh, I just have
to be over 20 centimeters.
And so
you could imagine why there were a whole
heck of a lot of fish that were
just shy of that 20 centimeter mark that
didn't count.

(13:55):
So
Gosh. That's a centimeter high limit in my
mind. You know? That's... Oh yeah. It was
it's crazy. But, you know, there's still a
very much a tradition there even, like a
supplying restaurants and stuff. It's such a,
you know, a culinary culture of
and

(14:17):
that includes still the trap.
Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.
Well,
let's... I'd like to talk to you about
your... Welcome.
That you just came out with, the Still
fly fishing.
And
what were your goals in writing that?
Considering most of the work that
you've done has been in, kind of the

(14:37):
euro n world. Right? And this is I
mean, I know to the instruction I've done.
But... Yeah. But yeah. I I think that
that it's a common misconception of all you
have to do is watch a few videos
online from certain influencers to to hear that
all we do is your in competition, and
that's just something not true.
No. I'm not even close to truth. So

(15:00):
basically,
I look at, you know, most of the
the literature and the instruction that's been out
there, and there's a very different style
in Europe,
and in, especially the Uk
competition still waters scene. There's a very different
style there in a lot of ways than
a lot of the style that has evolved
in North America.

(15:20):
So I think of...
I just feel like there was a sort
of a a knowledge
that has come from that side of the
pond and the styles of fishing that I've
learned from fishing competitions that hasn't really been
taught to most anglers here in the United
States. There's plenty of good
education that's out there for folks who still
water fish. But as a result, you see

(15:43):
sort of folks that do a few things
here in the United States like fish indicators
with corona under them or just stroll around
when they're float tube and, you know, charleston
some leach lives, stuff like that. Mh. But
there's some far more active approaches
a lot of tractor based approaches, a lot
of, kind of,
shock awe or

(16:04):
I just call it polling flies.
Casting and retrieving flies often at speed
that
especially is common in the the Uk lock
style, still water scene that we just
haven't been exposed to for the most partner
in the United States. So I I felt
like just like with euro where there
until recently, there was not much of

(16:26):
of that knowledge being shared in in North
America I felt like I could bring a
little bit of that competitive knowledge from Europe
and share for anglers here who are interested
and in adopting other styles and finding out
what works for them, and and maybe is
also
potentially a little more exciting too,
especially when it comes to locks fishing.

(16:47):
Okay. Okay. Good.
Couple little short questions here before we go
to a break here.
Jd Murphy wants to know. He said, where
did you get the photo on the cover
of your new book? Looks like this guy
can cast.
Well, so was a cheeky little question because
Jd happens to be the father of Connor
Murphy, who is the person on needs the

(17:09):
front cover of, but
so.
So, yeah.
Connor
my good friend Connor and former
manager of my shop. We were on a
backpack trip in the middle of
in the middle of a remote set of
mountains, and I was sitting there taking photos
of him fishing the lake from up on
the hill because of the fishing happened to

(17:31):
be actually quite poor that day. So I
figured it was a good chance to get
the photos for the book
The Yeah. Yeah. Well, he can cast. And
I suppose Jay take credit for teaching them.
Right? Yeah.
This should be well. Why not? You know
Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, y'all was you always have to

(17:52):
toot your kid's horn. Right? Whenever you get...
Down Well. So... As a father, you know,
we gotta take credit where credit to due.
Right? That's true. Yes. You do too. Yeah.
That's yeah.
Oh, good. Good. The other question came in
on the Internet from Phil Kentucky. He wanted
know about the story behind the photo with
you of the huge brown shout on our

(18:13):
homepage.
Oh, well, I'm not... I actually don't know
which photo specifically that was. So I if
it's the 1 I'm thinking of that you,
I think you used previously.
Oh, that was yeah. From a So I
I think it's in the book as well.
That was... Yeah. I is. It talked that
fishing locks style on a lake.
In Southeast Wyoming.

(18:35):
And Oh, I was there with my friend
Josh Graph and we were
there in the fall just kinda
drift Locks along this bank. We got a
whole bunch of big brown trout and big
rainbows that day, mainly just casting and retrieving
of what I call the Kim humongous Wall
bugger just pattern that came from Scotland, but,

(18:56):
the polar version that I was fishing that
and then we were fishing also if I
remember I some
kinda of black
bunny style boob
to keep the... And the flies just above
the bottom in the in a bay that
we were drifting into, and I got 2
or 3 brown trout that were pretty similar
in size to that that day. Nice.
Nice. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful fish. Yeah. So...

(19:19):
Well, let's take a quick break. When we
return, we'll answer more of the questions.
With Devon about still butterfly fishing. So hang
tight. We'll be right back. The Egg Bug
fly shop in Casper, Wyoming has been serving
5 fishers in Wyoming and around the world
since 19 83. Their selection of top of
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flies is 1 of the best in the

(19:39):
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Again, the Ugly bug fly shop dot com
or call them at 8668459284.

(20:03):
You're listening to ask about fly fishing Internet
radio. We're talking with dim olson about still
fly fishing.
Competition
inspired strategies.
If you'd like to ask, have a question,
please go to our home homepage and ask
about fly fishing dot com and use that
q and a text box to send us
to your question.
So Devin, I always asked my guess what's
going on in your fly fishing world. Obviously,

(20:23):
you, we've talked about 2 of the things
your book and the the competition, what else
is happening?
Yeah. Actually, I I had another couple of
competitions this last weekend. Just some regional qualifier
for T usa,
ended up being fortunate to win both of
those, so that was good.
And then
other than that, just kinda,

(20:44):
you know, doing as much fishing
during the week as I can. And then
if my wife happens to be on shift
on the weekends. I'm taking my kids Out
I don't know water with me most weekends
as well. And
whether they fish or they just swim while
I fish right buy them. You know, I'm
getting fishing in that way, at least. So
so... Yeah, That's you know, just kind of
back to day to day fishing now for

(21:05):
a little bit, and then I'll be doing
some...
I'll actually be headed back into some highlights
on a big backpack trip with my wife
in August, and
then
rolling back into more competitions in September, and
then a a trip to Spain as well
to go
fish with my friend Pablo from the Spanish
team, in is his friend, David. So I've

(21:25):
got a hosted trip that we're doing in
Spain on September.
They're least on the short range docket. That's
what's happening.
Nice. Nice. What tell folks about your business
too?
Yeah. So I own a a flash shop
an online flash up. Called tactical Fly phishing.
And
really, it it started
mainly because back But I was biologist and...

(21:47):
But still competing. I was having a hard
time getting sort of niche materials from Europe
and a lot of
things that I needed for urine and tying
specific flies. And so I started my own
shop to be able to source it easier.
And it's kinda grown into what it is
now, which is a fairly expansive
flash shop. We focus a lot on

(22:09):
urine an thing and kind of high level
still water fishing and technical drive fishing. So
kind of
strategies that come out of competition and have
trickled down to
the others through of whether it be through,
you know, my content or others,
I'm just trying to help
make people better anglers as well as I
can through sharing information and then helping people

(22:31):
pick up the gear that, goes along with
that.
And you wanna share your domain?
Yeah. It's just tactical fly fisher dot com.
Or
Put in tactical fly fisher into Google You'll
get right there. No problem.
Okay. Alright. Good. Well, thanks for sharing. Alright.
Well, let's get back to somebody's of these
questions.
Roy from Fukushima and Orange County wanted know

(22:53):
how you got into fly fishing and flight
tying.
It's in your bio. What what did we
say you started at
when at
What was... So I actually started tying flies
before I first caught fish on a fly
rod. You know, I started
fishing when I was a little kid. My
parents have a picture when I was 18
months old of me holding up

(23:13):
some rainbow that was probably caught on power
beta or something. I don't even know. But
But, then my dad actually taught me how
to tie a Wool Worm when I was
7,
mainly so that he wouldn't have to time
me Wool Worms.
And,
we went and... I finished it kind of
just a bubble and a fly and some
highlights with them for a couple years there,
and then

(23:34):
when I was 9. That was the the
first time I I actually caught a fish
on a fly rod and kind of the
rest has been history ever since.
No. You. Good. So your dad with a
5 fisher as well.
Yep. Long line of I'm actually at my...
I have
an ancestry of commercial fishermen in in

(23:55):
Norway.
And Oh, my grandfather who was Danish. He
also fly fish.
I don't know how far back on his
side it went.
But
whether it starts with him or not, my
my grandfather fly fish and, you know, then
my dad and
And now, my brother and I, and now
my kids and my wife, So, hopefully, we

(24:16):
have a a long tradition
coming of fly in the family.
Yeah. That's interesting. I it's passed down.
Mine was a bit different. My dad taught
me how to fish.
And I taught him how to fly fish
when I was 13, I thought him out
of fly fish. And now I thought my
son and we're teaching my grandson now too.

(24:37):
So Yeah. Nice to. And and the nicest
thing is when you can get a whole
group to be out on the river at
the same time, You know. So
Yeah. It makes the world out very special.
Yeah. There's a phone a photo in the
book. There's a phone photo in the book
actually of
my dad and myself and my son in
the boat with my my son landing fish
that he just took on a fire out.

(24:58):
So... Oh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. He was pretty
little at that point. So I'm pretty sure
that, either my dad or or I made
the calf, but but he at least at
the hook he did the rest of it.
So... Yeah. Now, you gotta start at some
point. Right? Yeah. So... Yep. Yeah. That'd very
cool. Very cool.
Well, let's talk about still waters here. In
your book, you start out in the book

(25:20):
by talking about
traffic states, of still water. Can you help
us understand, you know, what those are and,
you know, explain what traffic state is of
a still water and help us to understand
how it can help us to be more
productive.
Sure. So
slight typo there. It's actually t state.

(25:40):
And so
t.
Yep. Yep. So it's t. There's a there's
a ph in there.
But the t state is basically just the
nutrient load that's in the still water. So
you have everything from an ultra, l,
like that would be really infer lake that
has very
little amount of dissolved, solids and nutrients in

(26:02):
it,
load dissolved ion content just kinda really infer.
So a lot of highlights lakes
in the Rocky Mountains would probably fall under
that category. There's some...
It's usually
large steep sided gl glacier origin
lakes that tend to be all older leg
traffic or some sort of deep high mountain

(26:23):
reservoirs that
don't have a lot of nutrient load coming
in would fit into either ultra or just
oli. So electro lakes, they're not very fertile.
They don't tend to have
you know, a lot of a or macro
growth, they're usually clearwater.
And as a result, they're
their food web and their food production tends

(26:43):
to be pretty limited kind of to small
mag,
a few
zoo
solenoid and a few daphne sometimes, but you
don't get a lot of
larger bodied macro invert, you know, not a
lot of
dragonflies flies, dams flies,
Cal May flies, You know, with the types
of things that you tend to find in

(27:03):
strong weed beds
So then Mh. Me t would be still
waters that are
kind of medium in nutrient load. A lot
of the most famous lakes that are out
there.
Probably would fall into that category because
their Me trophy tends to be about
the, you know, the category where trout fisheries

(27:26):
can be really productive, have good nutrient
and
productivity capacity,
but still remain cold enough and deep enough
in certain points of it
that, they'll harbor trout.
A lot of what we would call it
eu still waters, which are, you know, the
most nutrient,

(27:47):
heavy
have the most primary production capability.
They tend to be really shallow
and have a lot of
sometimes
pollution coming into them, you know, it can
be high nutrient loads from land based
practices that whether it's erosion or, you know,
sewage treatment that's not
actually, tertiary treatment to treat nutrients, things like

(28:07):
that. If you have a lot of nutrient
load coming into a place in it's shallow,
then it tends to be eu and that's
when you get a pond that has just
weed mats everywhere and you can't even see
into it because
all you can see is weeds by summer,
you know? So those tend to be a
lot of the the shallow ponds and maybe
people put grass carp and things like that
into to

(28:28):
basically g down the algae and the and
the macro. But,
Me t that, you know, think of maybe
I wouldn't I would have to actually look
at the metrics, the different ways that Lin
just do sampling, but I would guess places
like Henry's lake, or

(28:48):
yeah. On Henry's Lake Island Park Reservoir, some
of those,
that are up there head getting, lake,
some of the famous reservoirs that are up
there. Those would probably fall under that me
t
category,
and they tend to make some of the
best beneficiaries. A lot of the ones in
Oregon as well.
So... But a lakes can still provide good
trout fisheries, they just... If you're gonna have

(29:10):
a good
you know, a large fish in a l
system, there tends to be a low density
of fish to get there. So,
for instance, in the highlights that I tend
to cover
or target.
You can go to high alpine lakes that
have
pretty large biomass of fish, but it's all
in, like, 6 to 8 inch increments of
fish, you know, just none fish that

(29:31):
that there's not a lot of food to
go around. So if you have a lot
of mouths to feed, they don't get very
large.
But the couple of drainage over or even
you know, further up the chain if you
have a lake that doesn't have a lot
of spawning habitat and the numbers of fish
are lower, you can still get some pretty
good fish, but there just has to be
fewer mouths to feed. So,
me lakes though because they have higher primary

(29:53):
productivity
and the whole way for the food chain
tends to be supported with higher nutrient load
and more production capacity, then you can feed
more mouths and still get, you know, large
fish. And so a lot of the most
famous lakes that are out there, that fall
under that category. You can catch a lot
of a lot of nice, you know, side
fish.
So what what I'm hearing from you is

(30:14):
the type the t
state of a lake or reservoir,
should help you to,
kind of
shape your
expectations.
And your expectations, But
but also, once you know what kind of
reservoir or like you're looking at. If you're
looking at an
system, and you don't see much weed growth,

(30:36):
and you're not seeing a lot of large
insects and whatnot flying around. Then you can
also adjust your fly selection and your station
to suit that.
Right. So in highlights,
you can still end up using a tractor
based pulling approaches and they work really well,
But you might also wanna do a lot
of fishing with smaller n and mid pup

(30:58):
and smaller drive flies that are common for
the small corona that tend to be in
those systems. There's a lot... In a
base systems, you get a lot of smaller
species of corona that are, like, size 16
all the way down to 20 fours. Whereas
in me systems,
you get all those other species of of
may eyes of cad of

(31:20):
you know, dragonflies dams, a lot of leech
is, a lot of times, a lot of
sc. If you have the right water chemistry
and weed beds, So you just have a
a wider variety of a larger food forms
and me lakes, and that can inform your.
Your fly selection as well. Yeah. Yeah. I've
got a a little like that's on the
property down the hill from me here. That's

(31:41):
8800 feet. It's not a high mountain like,
but
it is it a hundred feet elevation, but
it's a, you know, it's a farm like,
couple acres,
and,
cattle grazing around it, and hey, that kind
of thing. But it grows weeds like,
like, no.
Like incredibly weed growth. In fact, every once

(32:02):
once every year,
we take a cable and go around the
lake and drag a cable through and cut
the weeds out, and dump them on the
side
and they're going back, you know, right away.
So do you think a lot of that
we growth is from
nutrients coming from the cattle and, you know,
waste and I don't think they fertilize The

(32:22):
hey, fields or anything, but
where do you think that... It's a shadow
like, maybe 12 feet deep... Yeah. I mean,
part of that just has to do with...
The soil that it's in. Right? So that's
the basic
thing that informs the nutrient lot of a
like to begin with. Is it's just the
geology that it comes from. And sometimes literally
a different rock layer and a different drainage

(32:44):
can make a
a leg, far more or far less productive.
So the geology has a lot to do,
if you have a lot of soft soils
that are are
nutrients and rich around, and you have water
dissolving through that and going into the lake.
As a result, Then you're gonna have a
pretty high nutrient mode. And then if you
dump surface
fertilizer on top of that through manure, then,

(33:04):
yeah, that certainly contributes to
nutrient loads. Yeah.
And would lead to higher dissolved
everything. Basically, that Yeah. Feeds the primary productivity
at the base of the food chain.
Yeah. It produces a lot of bugs, dams
sole,
Cad. I mean, it just everything comes off
that lake. So the fish grow rather quickly

(33:27):
from
9 inches to 16 inches and just a
year or 2, it seems like. So
I think it's really nutrient and rich. I
was just still, you know, kinda wondering because
I hear what you're saying if you go
up to 1 of the High Mountain lakes,
you've got that rock base. Right? You don't
have this river
river bottom soils underneath the lake and so
forth like you do where I am now.

(33:47):
You know, at the River Valley. So
mh. I hear what you're saying. Yeah. About
that. Yeah. Yeah. All where it started so
to speak.
Yeah. Okay. Phil just said about your photo
over that shot. He says I gotta do
what Devin doing.
Okay. So listen Phil,

(34:09):
Devin gonna tell you here. So then you're
talk in your book about different zones.
That compose a lake and understanding how those
might, the
tutorial and the pro fund bill and
Pal
zones. Can you tell us about those? And
what we should be looking at there?
Sure. So really, what it all boils down

(34:31):
to is sunlight.
And you can divide you can divide fill
waters
into different areas that either receives sunlight or
don't. So
the...
There's
oh, man. I I need to actually pull
the book out because I forgotten the specific
term about the the limit right now, but
there's

(34:53):
the
be anyone in the challenge. Yeah. Page 4
it. Yeah.
Alright.
Good.
See this is what happens when you do
a master's degree in and and Fisher fisheries
ecology, and then you actually don't use it
for a years. But
and then you write a book and you
get you
try and forget about it as soon as
possible. But...

(35:13):
But...
Let's see here. Page 4. So anyway, the
compensation depth that was the the word I
was looking for. So. In the dallas, you
have the lit electoral zone. And then is
anywhere where light can penetrate and actually you
reach the bottom.
So,
out
away from that zone, if you go to

(35:35):
what's called the compensation depth. So that's basically
where Sunlight has penetrated the lake, but then
att. And eventually, it doesn't go any further.
Or there's not enough light to actually provide
energy for photosynthesis,
So that compensation depth, if you then go
horizontally out into that still water
below that compensation depth, between there and the

(35:57):
bottom and that zone would be called the
Pre refundable.
And then
above that compensation depth, if you're out over
open water, that would just be the pho
zone within the
pla waters. So most people would just refer
to it as open water, but it's just
kinda water that's not really in contact with
the shoreline or with the bottom, but it's

(36:18):
still receiving sunlight line.
There are separate...
You know, not entirely separate, but somewhat separate
food webs for both of those zones, the
and the lit electoral. The the pre funnel
is not generally a
a zone that has a lot of fish
activity for, at least for fly fishing because
we simply can't reach it most the time

(36:39):
with our gear, some... You know, a lot
of guys targeting lake trout
with deep t or jig rigs might be
able to get down to the per bundle.
But typically,
in clear blanks, you're looking at 30 40
50, 60 feet deep or deeper for the
compensation steps to actually
you know, reach it if you have a
really clear like. In a less clear like,

(37:00):
it might only be, you know, 15 20
feet, maybe even 10 if it's quite murky.
But typically, most life fishers focus on the
lit electoral zone, because that's where most of
the the photosynthesis since this happens for macro
fights, you know, macro are rooted weeds that
are growing out of the substrate.
Along the bottom along the edges of still

(37:23):
water.
And so when you have weeds, and you
have a strong base of the food chain
there, then you get primary consumers that live
on those, all the macro invert, you know,
that turn into the bugs that trout eat.
And or feed the with some small fish
that then t eat, you know. So and
total zone is the most productive area in
most lakes feed But in a lot of

(37:46):
out Lakes, especially steep sided ones, the p
zone ends up being
incredibly important as well, and it's often forgotten
about by most fly fishers. And there are
a lot of legs out there that really
don't have a very well functioning with Oral
zone because they're either sleep sided or it's
a reservoir that gets drawn down quickly throughout
the growing season and it can't really establish

(38:07):
weed beds and, you know, a functioning zone
in that regard So most of the food
chain and the still water food web ends
up being pro paste, and it starts with
ph,
the seeds z and then the zoo point
and other feed trap directly or they feed
other fish that then the trout feed on.
So there's a lot of, especially large

(38:28):
still waters in the west that if you
were to take samples, of, for example of
what fish were eating throughout the year, there's
a specific dew water I'm thinking of and
that they did a food web study on.
Very same as still
and Utah at 80 percent of what they
were reading throughout the year. For the most
part was Daphne,
which is the Zoo point and and they

(38:49):
were mostly eating it from the B zone.
But yet, most life fishers there focus on
the lit electoral zone and on other food
sources, you know? So
keeping in mind that there are various places
of fish can eat from. And then as
a result, various
parts of the food web have different food
sources
depending upon what zone

(39:10):
you're at in a still water.
Yeah. Does that answer the question?
Yeah. I think so your picture in your
book is really
not it really shows what you've just talked
about. It makes sense even in our little
lake area, You know, you have the open
water, you've got the weed beds and so
forth. And
Yep my?

(39:30):
My guess is it with your specific lake
example, I would bet that entire lake as
a zone.
Yeah. Yeah. I would bet. If you've got
weeds, you know, growing straight up from the
bottom or if you go out there and
you see actual weed growth on the bottom.
That is still the to zone. They're still
light reaching the bottom.
Right. It's more in, you know, larger deeper

(39:51):
lakes
that the P palazzo zone tends to be,
you know, a little more important.
Yeah. And what you also said about you
know, large lakes of reservoirs where the water
is drawn down and that tutorial zone doesn't
get to shape up. Right? Makes total sense
of fred just wrote in here on the
Internet, he said, when the surface water heats

(40:12):
up jig deep, 35 to 70 feet at
Pyramid lake really paid off.
Just showing an experience you had. But that
kind of shows you... I've never been a
pyramid like, but I expect that most of
that is
El.
Right? I yeah. We've been... Yeah. In fact,
most people kinda
focus on the beaches out there where

(40:34):
you can access the deeper water
from a a standing position kind of on
a be of sand, you know, out on
a ladder or whatever.
Right. But the the food web in pyramid
is almost
entirely hypoallergenic based.
So you've got this
really strong,
density of of zoo are out there, and

(40:55):
then they feed the 2 chu in the
sacramento of perch. But and those feed the
cut. So it's a pretty simple
food web out there. There's not a lot
of... Other than, like, corona. There's not really
a lot of
other typical weed based
insects that you might find in other famous
big trap producing lakes.
Right. Right.

(41:16):
Let me take a another quick break here,
And
when we come back, we'll we'll talk about
the food web you and dig into that
a little bit more.
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(42:20):
them at 02:06
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You're listen ask about fly fishing Internet reagan.
We're talking with Demos and about steel water
fishing,
competition inspired strategies.
If you'd like to ask them a question,
it's go to our homepage, and fill out
that form send it in, we'll try to
get an answered tonight on the show.

(42:41):
Couple of questions came in while we're talking
Devon
Brad and San Diego. How does 1 find
out about fly fishing competitions?
Our spectators allowed to watch. Are there any
in the western states, specifically California.
I feel that watching good fishermen fish is
a great way to learn and get educated
being from San Diego. There's is not much
fly fishing for trout around here. My home

(43:02):
waters would be the Eastern Sierra, which is
a good 5 to 6 hour drive.
So can you help out? I, the easiest
way to find out about them, specifically kind
of the background. And so there's a couple
of podcasts that I did with Lance And
Pablo
And
Pat Weiss that we did
all about

(43:23):
competition fly fishing and that those podcasts are
on the n and the noah. There was
a couple episodes there. That'll run you through
kinda everything that happens.
Also, I talked a fair bit about it
on the podcast I did with April V
when I was on there with her. But
if you wanna find out about the specific
restrictions themselves and where they're at and when
they're held, we have

(43:43):
the fly phishing team usa website that we
normally have a schedule on there as well
as fly comps dot com. That's the actual
website where people go register and
so all the competitions are listed there. But,
yeah. Spec spectators are always welcome. You know.
As long you're kind.
And
and in most places, we don't have a

(44:03):
lot of spectators, but when we do,
a lot of them come away with some
definite, you know, tips and benefits that kinda
spawned then questions that they ask me later.
So I I used to have especially back
when I lived in colorado. There were a
few people there that would come around and
watch me and the other competitors and the
competitions I was fishing there.
And I always got a lot of good

(44:24):
questions from there out. From them afterwards, you
know, asking about specific things that I did
and why I was doing it, and it
was actually pretty thought provoking for me as
well because then I had to should come
up with an explanation A lot of times
of why I was just doing something that
was natural.
So so, yeah.
Yeah. Hope Is welcome. But there aren't a

(44:44):
lot of competitions in California simply because there
aren't very many competitors there.
Okay. Has gotten on the circuit, but there
are competitions to North and Oregon,
fairly often,
but at this point, the main zones of
competitions tend to be in
Colorado,
Utah, Wyoming, of, Wyoming, Idaho, and then

(45:08):
North Carolina,
Georgia and Pennsylvania, New York. Those are kind
of the hotbed right now. Where there's the
most active anglers
competing.
Yeah. Well,
was the first
competition in Colorado for the Us?
That was the first national championship.
We had a championship. Yeah.

(45:29):
Competitions leading up to that elsewhere. But, yeah,
I fished in that first nationals in 2006.
Yeah. And that's when I started this podcast,
was 2006,
and I went out on the
water and interviewed of you guys. And I
don't remember if I talk to you or
enough. But yeah, It was all kind of
new and fresh and
very very intriguing and interesting,

(45:50):
back then, But I... Yeah. I remember doing
that, Lily Lake, I think. My how things
have changed since 2006.
Yeah.
Oh, in so many anyways, in so many
ways. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, let's talk about... Oh, let's see.
Jd.
He Jd, who you know well?

(46:11):
Wants to know, can you talk about your
worm pattern in Gilbert recent online video?
Hey think he's referring to the Dna worm.
So
the Dna worm is basically...
It was an attempt to get
sc me warm that was a lot more
durable.
Oh. So
it's a pattern made of

(46:33):
hairline Life flex. I blend... I take 2
strands of it, spin it together and what
ends up looking like, a double helix once
you then spin it back on itself. That's
why I called the Dna worm.
And I have a tutorial on our Youtube
channel for people to go out of tight
as they want. But but it's a it's
a warm pattern that works really well. It's
actually a great still water pattern if you

(46:53):
wanna hang it under an indicator or under
a drive fly or fish it, like, on
a washing line, just really slow. It works
really well and still waters.
Okay. Okay.
Alright. Let's talk about the food webs, and
you have a whole chapter in your book
about that. And there are different food webs

(47:14):
depending on what zones we're talking about, the
project or the Le electoral. Right? So can
you maybe explain the difference in how we
would fish those differently because of the food
webs?
Sure.
Well,
they're...
I kinda touched on a little bit when
we are talking about the zones. But Yep.
No matter what. Whenever you have a food

(47:35):
web,
that you can almost think of it as
2 separate food chains almost or at least
kinda
more less complex food webs within each of
those zones and then they're bridged
by the trout and the other fish that
end up swimming back and forth. So you
get nutrients mixing between the 2 zones mainly
by a larger body organisms as well as

(47:55):
current in the lake. But at the, you
know, at any food web the base of
it's always your primary producers.
So
in the lit electoral zone. That's gonna be
the macro, those rooted
macro, and there's also epi fights and
para
that lives
on the rocks and those plants themselves. So

(48:16):
basically, Algae that there's actual algae that then
lives on those macro fights on their their
leads. So they use them as the substrate.
Those would be epi fights.
And then the para, they tend to live
on the rocks. So the algae that you
might go flipping around on if you want
to wait on a lot of that's.
So those are your primary producers, then you're
gonna have gray or, you know, primary consumers,

(48:39):
which a lot of those are are macro
fights
or sorry mac just small mac invert
So you could have Sc. You could have
other insect Macro and invert like,
May, cat,
dan flies and dragonflies are usually
secondary
consumer, so they eat
the primary consumers their predators.

(49:00):
And then you've got small fish that end
up praying on all of those both of
those primary and secondary consumers and trout that
prey on them.
And then, you know, you have those Av
predators and the the other things that are
catching those traps, and then
those nutrients end up going back in either
through

(49:20):
the fecal matter of those avian birds or
if you get,
trout just die then you get those
d decompose,
the scavenger like,
crawfish,
etcetera, that kinda close that Web on that
side. You're looking, you know, more at rooted
plants,
lots of different insects and macro and invert.
Right. Fairly complex community as the macro and

(49:41):
vertebra side, on, the lit zone,
and then the fish the feet on them.
Out in the ph logic zone, it starts
with Ph plankton.
So basically free living algae or Plankton species
that are out there.
And then they end up getting eaten by
zoo, and there's lots of different types of
zoo and most people don't even know

(50:02):
about
the bulk of them. They don't... The very
few that fly fishers that are kinda tuned
into the
z inside of things think of Da, but
there's a lot more than Daphne out there.
There's Cope pods, or cal, you know, different
types of that side of it as well.
And in some highlights,
of those can actually be really important. But
Daphne it tend to be the biggest food

(50:24):
source for trout.
And then
you have other than the trout. You've got,
you know, like, bait fish species that might
be out there, eating the Daphne as well,
and then the the trout might eat the
bait fish.
Or
another fish that's really common in a lot
of still waters that really focuses on Z
plains will be Ko Salmon.
So then you might have dropped either of
the Ko salmon or for instance, like Lake

(50:45):
drop, which they're kind of like that Apex
pre out there in the logic zone eating
Ko and or trial.
So it's a little bit simpler in the
food web as far as the breadth of
the community out in the Logic zone. Then
it might be in the electoral zone, but
it's still a very important
zone for production. It just happens to be

(51:06):
out over open water instead of with rooted
plants.
Yeah. And then you get crossed over between
them.
Yeah. I'm I'm, you know, again, looking at
your diagram in your book, and it it
shows it
very effectively.
The...
What I'm saying here is that in the
pla zone,
am I correct in that you're not gonna

(51:27):
be having the hatch out there that you
went in the editorial zone.
You're better off fishing. Yeah.
So that... Largely, that's true. There are some
deep dwelling species,
and
insects called the phantom that can
hatch over
deep water, but in general, it's not really

(51:48):
an insect
hatch based
you know, part of the food web out
there. It's mainly fish that are focusing on
Zoo or the bait fish that are eating
them.
So
you're typically not I imitate anything specific out
over ella water in the same way because
there's not really anything that's I imitate.
There's a lot of people who've tried to
come up with Daphne cluster flies and things

(52:10):
like that, but the interesting part about it
if you watch
fish feeding on Daphne. They're not eating clusters.
Yeah. The daphne is still split apart in
the water. They might be in dense cloud
sometimes, but they're not actually clustered.
And most trout don't have gill rake that
have narrow enough
gaps between their gill, but they can just
filter their feet on them, like, you know,

(52:31):
bailing with a a whale, for instance, Coke
do. They have gil rake that are closer
together. So they're more effective at feeding on
Zoo. But trout... Pretty much still have to
swim along and jump on them and they...
As they go. So
Yeah. And I haven't found anybody who's come
up with something that I would consider to
be an actual
Daphne a pattern that the t eat it

(52:52):
for Daphne. There's people who catch flies on,
quote unquote Daphne patterns, but I don't think
it's necessarily because they're actually eating it as
Daphne.
So, typically, on in the Logic zone, it's
more of a
a pulling lure based
method for me, you know, pulling
flashy flies,
that tend to get attention and kind of
break trout out of the dol rooms with

(53:13):
something to chase.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Possibly
yes. Yeah. Absolutely I'm tractor. That that's Yeah.
That's another connection there where you'll get a
lot of blow ins out over open water.
Whether it's and beetles or other terrestrial. And
you definitely can have some good drive life
fishing over open water as a result.

(53:35):
Yeah. Yeah.
Ed in, Wisconsin road and he says, how
do you determine the depth and structure when
I fish
1 fishing a lake and competition. He says
I assume
Phi most
rules do not allow depth finder.
Yep. So that's true. We aren't allowed electronics
and fit
competitions.

(53:56):
So really, it comes down to, you know,
pretty
much observation based analog methods.
You... I just start looking at the the
lay of the land around the reservoir or
the still water you know, typically, you can
always have abrupt changes just like you'd see
outside the lake. But if you have a
shallow gradual slope

(54:17):
entering a reservoir from 4 long ways above
it. You can
typically predict that it's gonna be a continuation
of that. You have a steep side, you
know, you can predict that as well.
But really, I start looking...
That I think this will come up in
maybe some of the later questions. But I
start looking for points of difference in a
lake that I don't know,

(54:39):
especially 1 where I don't have a a
ba map. So that is 1 thing. It's
is you're fishing a lake that is fairly
popular.
There might be an actual contour or map
that's published for it. So you can get
some information for that. And whenever
we fish in place that has those online.
I definitely study them to know a bit
more about where I might be going.

(55:01):
But in general, I just start looking at
at the edges of a still water and
then
kind of
almost
extra from there.
And then I look for specific points of
structure, like, rock points or Weed days
or, you know, logs that are down and
going out the, like, just
areas that look different from the surrounding water,

(55:23):
and that's where my eyes tend to go
and where I tend to focus and
when I combine that with
thermometer, and I know, you know,
generally, what temperature it is, combine that with
what's happening with the wind,
whether it'd be the current or just chop,
I can hopefully come up with a... A
basic idea, what depth to start at

(55:46):
where to focus my efforts
at that depths and and then just kinda
go at a gas and check pace from
there.
You did... Because you just brought it up
the temperature, in your book, you talk about,
you know, temperature ranges and
how that affects the activity of the of
the trout. What ranges are you looking for?
And are you dropping a thermometer in the

(56:07):
lake if you're out floating?
How would you know or can you extrapolate
from a shoreline reading, what it might be
at different levels?
Yeah. So there are actual... There are some
pretty complex gadgets out there that'll get you,
you know, readings at depth. Back when I
was doing a lot of
work. Studying, you know, still waters

(56:28):
when I was
a biologist and then also in grad school.
I use what's called a Ys meter, a
yellow springs instrument and it's on a cord
and it gives you both
dissolved oxygen content and temperature as you drop
this probe into the water. So you can
get a...
Temperature and dissolved oxygen profile
from top to bottom with something like that.

(56:49):
But your average life fisher is not gonna
carry that around for 1 thing Their expensive
side instruments.
So... And really, a lot of times, the
depths at which
temperature really starts to change.
If it's in a clear
dew water,
when we're talking about
thermo lines since that's really what people are

(57:10):
typically getting at of that zone where the
temperature rapidly changes in, like, a lot of
times, thermal lines are deep enough that they're
sort of out of the realm of most
flying anglers with
traditional castle retrieve methods because they can be
quite deep. On a clearwater, you know, like,
they could be 30 plus c deep, where
the thermo klein
actually is...

(57:32):
So
You know, a lot of people
I've heard all sorts of people say, I
was fishing below the thermal client, and that's
where I started signing the fish. I was
like... But... How do you actually know that
you were fishing both thermo klein without
instrumentation,
I don't know how you can predict that.
Yeah. So... And I've heard of some Fish

(57:52):
and whatnot these days that do have predictive
thermometers essentially. I don't know what the actual
technology is and how
reliable it works. But there is that available.
And then there is a... There's sort of
the old analog method. There is a a
depth firm that's out there. That basically it's
a thermometer that allows you to...
Kinda open the cap of this thermometer and

(58:14):
fill it, and you can kinda put it
on your own rope
and put markings on the ropes, so you
know, what depth you're at? And then you
can open that at a certain depth. And
as long as you bring it up quickly
and take the reading before it's had a
chance to really change much, then you can
kinda get an idea of the temperature. Change.
But I don't really do any of that.
Normally, I... What I care about is

(58:35):
is a surface temperature reading
And based on that surface temperature to reading,
I know whether it's comfortable
for the trap to be shallow or whether
it's not, And really, that's what it boils
down to. So
as long as the temperature is less than
about 68 degrees, but especially, like, 65, that
tends to be where they start to try,
go a little deeper for sure, if they

(58:56):
have access to food in deeper zones anyway.
Then
as long as it's you know, that temperature
or less,
I'm probably gonna focus,
you know, I'm gonna start shallow and work
my way deep as opposed to if it's
warmer than that. If it's not that much
warmer than that. If it's, like, 70 degrees
in warm. I'm not fishing because I don't

(59:17):
wanna bring trout up through that warm surface
layer and play them in that surface layer
and then risk
putting, you know, them back and wondering about
their mortality. So I tend to leave a
lot of warmer still waters alone in July
and August when surface temperatures get too high
because I just don't yeah. You know, I
don't need to be responsible for that. So...
But if it's, you know, if it's 68

(59:38):
degrees on the surface
then I'm probably gonna be looking for fish
down
15 feet,
you know, maybe deeper. So that's when I
might... Readings like that, I might start at,
like, mid or lower column and work my
way even further down.
Whereas as if it's 65 or
less then I'm probably gonna start fairly close
to the top and start working my way
down. But that will also be informed by

(01:00:01):
things like the sun angle
and the amount of wind shop.
Typically if you have really high sun angle
and and no wind, then I'm gonna be
looking deeper.
But if you've got lower sun angles or
a lot of chop, then I'll be looking
shallower again. So there's a lot of things
like that that end up informing
what depth I start at and then go

(01:00:21):
from there.
You mentioned wind.
How does the wind
the wind push fish?
To 1 side of lake or another or
it pushes the bait fish or the insects.
Well, it it doesn't necessarily push the fish,
but it will certainly push organisms that can't
swim very well. So there's actually a story

(01:00:42):
I tell in the book. There was a
competition I was fishing at. Well, I don't
know. Was probably background
20 10, somewhere we're in there.
And we're on a reservoir in Idaho,
and the temperatures were such that I expected
the fish to kinda be cruising around the
shallower or west side of the lake,
and, you know, feeding in that lit electoral

(01:01:02):
zone.
But there was a very consistent west to
east wind all day. So, basically, the a
lot electoral zone was on the lee side
of the wind, and then this big, deep
p palazzo zone was on the wind word
side, you know, the wind where the wind
was blowing too.
And So I...
There... I don't know. How many boats. We

(01:01:22):
fishing a locks style competition, but there was
probably half a dozen or 8 boats so
I can't remember how many But I was
the kind of, like, 1 of the only
boats that stayed around that shallow west side
to fish for the first hour or 2.
And I only caught 1 fish if I
remember right and really didn't have much other
interest in all these other boats had gone
across the lake, and I was like, well,

(01:01:43):
shoot. Did they know something I don't?
And sure enough when I got over there,
as we were rolling over,
all of a sudden I saw the lake
almost turned, like, to p green soup.
Went from being kind of clear blue green
or blue to, like, green. And it... I...
When I looked down, it was all Da.
So that strong

(01:02:04):
westward to East wind that had been blowing
not just that day, but for days had
blown
you know, these Daphne, which Daphne can swim,
but they can't swim well.
You'll see them twitch around right around your
current.
And they've been blown to the far side
of the lake. Kinda... And then they got
compact
against

(01:02:24):
that far side where, you know, the the
wind was just kinda running up against the
mountains side. And there were rainbows
over there just going to town on these
dense
you know, these dense cloud the Daphne that
were probably 15 to 20 feet deep. Like,
it was
they were all the way from the surface

(01:02:45):
to, like, 20 feet deep and
from top to bottom through that... You know,
that part of the column.
And they were transferred throughout all of them.
And I got over there and people were
catching fish like, crazy, and I was like,
well, I just
totally
situation.
Well, it's and another thing that I...
I... I'm wondering if it's just a little

(01:03:06):
variation of what you just talked about, when
I was up in
huge leg up in
in Manitoba,
fishing for per pike. And
a storm came up, the wind was blowing
in blown towards shore,
and we were there, and all of a
sudden you know, I would say, you know,
within 50 feet of the shore,
the water just exploded. And the the bait

(01:03:29):
fish were flying out by popcorn corn, you
know, out of the water.
And now what I'm thinking is that the
bait fish might have been following things like
this, you know, the smaller organisms, and then
the pipe came in because there was an
a, a, you know,
influx of vape fish in the shallow of
water, and then they were just attacking them.
So is that another possible? Entirely possible Yeah.

(01:03:51):
That that it's entirely possible and probably likely.
The other thing you have to realize about
that situation in any situation with wind.
It's just like being in a river.
If you go to
really smooth glide or a really smooth pool,
the
trout or the other fish in those sections

(01:04:12):
of river are kind of on alert because
they can see so much more of what's
going on above them.
So their alert to overhead predators, whether that's
you or, you know, or birds, etcetera. But
as soon as you put a chop on,
you know. Instance if you go in in
a river and you fish a fast run
that's got a a ton of waveforms or
a shallow r,

(01:04:33):
you can usually get closer to the fish,
and they don't they're they don't feel uncomfortable,
and those fish end up being easier to
catch because there's all that
that light ref that's going on from those
waveforms as well, but
tends to
just lower the acuity of their side a
little bit because there's just gl light everywhere
and it's a little bit harder for them

(01:04:53):
to see things very specifically.
And the same thing happens in lakes, a
lot of times, I will just chase chop
and I'll chase wind. If I have areas
of the still water that are calm and
areas that show, you know, r surface,
most of the time, that r surface, the
fish are gonna be a lot easier to
catch under. For the same reasons, they're gonna

(01:05:14):
feel safer.
They're not gonna feel like, you know, os
sprays and pe and whatever else can see
them as easily when that surface is ripple,
but also they can't see them as well
because that surface is broken. So they're just
not as alert to any overhead threats. And
then
same thing goes with that light. If you,
you know, if you ever watch underwater video,
if it's just completely calm, you can see

(01:05:36):
things really clearly underwater.
But as soon as you get all those
waveforms, that light just dances. You know, it's
like a, you know, Disco tech down there
of the sunlight going through a Disco ball
off the surface,
and that you know, it reduces their capability
to see your flights as plainly and as
specifically. And so they can inspect them quite

(01:05:56):
as well. And they're just more likely to
put them in their mouth and see if
it's food instead of, you know, coming up
and, like those trout out that we're doing
in France that I was talking about on
that lake they was a really calm surface,
and they could just swim
around from every angle and try and decide
whether it was food. But if
you're on a lake where the there's ton
of shop. They don't have that opportunity.

(01:06:18):
There's a question from a Chuck Place
For you. He says, do you find that
early morning working
Wi burgers and Leach
along the Shoreline are most effective.
Then as the sun comes up more keep
on niche patterns. It's minor understanding. It's still
water primarily.
Or pip eaters for the most part

(01:06:40):
that make... Well, so.
I don't... I don't necessarily agree with that
statement. Simply because we just went through the
the various parts of the food web. There's
been a lot of focus on kinda corona
fishing in the still water literature for good
reason. They're a very important food form, and
they're they're they're ubiquitous. I mean, there's corona

(01:07:00):
in every still water on earth that holds
trout. So they're always a food source.
But there's a ton of others depending upon
the type of, like that you go to.
So it kinda goes back you what what
type of lake are you again? What's its
t state? Yeah. What's the actual food web
in that lake like,
and it's certain... And it also depends on
when you're fishing there. So if you're fishing

(01:07:22):
there early early season right after ice off,
there might be a few early out. But
by and large, there aren't really any
heavy hatch that occur on most of the
lakes that I fish until the water gets
at least into the mid forties and often
approaching
50.
So the the corona it hatch don't really
happen in earnest until then. So early in

(01:07:43):
this season, really, you're limited to those
streamer or Lure approaches you know, whatever you
wanna call it.
And then
there's a really heavy per
part of the season, I would say and
kinda late, spring, early summer. But then in
a lot of me lakes, that gives way
to more
May cat and
Dan and dragons in the summer, and the

(01:08:05):
the c don't tend to be as effective.
And then in the fall, those main hatch
of bigger bugs, tend to wan, you get,
kinda smaller corona again, but not as dense,
hatch of them. So you might have some
more good corona fishing in the fall again,
but in the fall, typically, it's almost always
a leech and bug, you know, or lure
game for me because the... The main hatch

(01:08:28):
of the year tend to be over. And
so the fish... Are looking for any food
sources that remain there year round.
And a lot of times that's leach sc,
bait fish, that type of stuff. So I
guess what I'm saying is there a lot
of... It depends and a lot of caveats
that can be added on to that approach.
Yeah. The checklist was talking about.
Now. A lot of things going on. A

(01:08:49):
lot of programs late work that A lot
of times, bugger and and leach work great
all day in the right condition. Right.
Especially understand. Yeah. Or, I mean, under under
wind. Like, if you have a Windy day.
Usually, the bug and leach fishing is gonna
stay strong.
Whereas if it does go dead calm, then
a lot of times fish do get a
little more re to eat faster retrieved you

(01:09:10):
know, bugger and,
but they might take that
static or slowly retrieve prom at pup.
So for me, it's more about the conditions
both
done wind, weather, and then the type of
still water you you're fishing and and the
actual food web that's there. That ends up
determining, you know, a lot of what I'm

(01:09:31):
fishing whether that be the technique or the
flies.
Yeah. What,
a lot of parts and piece moving pieces.
Matt in fort Collins call he says, do
you ever get blank there have really marginal
days on Still water. I fish once a
week on a local public lakes in Colorado
Wyoming and while I'm I'm pretty average and

(01:09:53):
skilled. I'm not a sc either. I think
I have more under days or just straight
struggle more often than I'd like.
Do you have plenty of below average days
as well?
Well,
not as often as I certainly once did.
I
I guess it also depends if it's totally

(01:10:14):
brand new, like, and the fisheries is
kind of marginal
so to speak, and it's at a tough
time of the year was really cold water
temperatures, for instance, when the fish just aren't
terribly active. Like, normally,
post ice out.
As soon as the, like, fully ice off,
and you get spring turnover.
Or
fall around the same time again where it's

(01:10:34):
just prior to ice up. There can be
some hard fishing in those times
especially on lakes where you might not know
very well, or if they're just lakes that
don't have a very high density of fish.
But For the most part, I have a
deep enough quiver to draw on at this
point that is as long as I'm unable
to go through the process of exhausting the
different arrows in that quiver

(01:10:55):
normally, I can find at least 1 or
2 eventually that kinda hit the mark.
Yeah. Yeah. Ron,
Fisher in New York is going to Scotland
next week. He wants to know if you
have any advice on fishing the locks for
trout or the rivers reverse for Salmon.
Have you fish locked? I don't know anything
about the fish in the rivers for Sam
in there, but I have... My first world

(01:11:16):
championship was in Scotland back in 2009. Oh.
There's a really wide variety of different locks
in Scotland, and so, I guess it depends
upon which ones he'd
be referring to. But, basically,
most...
There's kind of locks there that are wild
brown trout fisheries.
So on most of those,

(01:11:38):
they either strip kind of flashy bugger like
humongous
on
fairly fast thinking lines, you know, type fives,
type sevens and kinda ripping them in to
look like bait fish or they fish a
lot of small black wet flies.
Fighters. They they call them a lot back
there, but, you know, sort of either palmer

(01:11:58):
or soft echo black flies
kinda high in the column, either on mid
dip or floating lines.
And you're... You're a bit late for the...
What they they actually call the a fly
there. The dani is that happened... The hatch
in May and early June. So that won't
be happening. But
you could still get some good Wet f
fishing or just kinda tractor based

(01:12:19):
strip implies.
But then there's a lot of other places
in Scotland and throughout the Uk that depending
upon the beneficiary you go to. They might
be actual stocked to pay to place fisheries
that have a mix of Rainbow trout as
well as Brown trout and then there's a
whole bunch of other tactics that come into
play with even flash flies like blobs and
boob that are fluorescent

(01:12:40):
and
you know, ripping approaches like that or if
it's a, lake that has a a lot
of corona or what they would call buzzer.
Then you can also buzz fish there.
And there's a whole bunch of approaches in
the book that talk about that, whether you're,
you know, most of them, they don't they
either fish them under what's called the Bun,
which is just their version of an indicator

(01:13:01):
or they'll fish them straight line style.
So you might have a really long flat
leader with
2 or 3 buzzer on there. And they
tend to fish more un weighted buzzer there
than we do. But you could also fish,
you know, beat headed buzzer or tungsten and
beaded buzzer there too.
So the all the stuff that we fish
here works in Scotland, I guess, works things.

(01:13:23):
Yeah. Yeah. But the challenge is always, you
know, figuring
out
which part were... Or which
tactic which flies, which
area the lake, you know, works best.
And there's a lot. Yeah that goes into
that.
And,
Ron, we did,
Devin and I did do a show on

(01:13:44):
locks style fishing, which is more about the
floating aspects of it.
On asking about Fly. So you can look
that up in our archive. That's well... Entire
chapter... There's an entire chapter in my book
on Lock style fishing as well.
And that's where we are now is that
we hardly made a dent in your book.
So

(01:14:05):
if you wanna learn more, you're gonna have
to go by Devin book. There's a link
on our own page there.
Yeah. I mean, Devin, your book is incredible.
And it's so thorough and so much to
learn out of it. And there's still more
questions that we didn't even get to
that were sent in. Sorry about that, but
that seems to be the way it always
ends up
But,

(01:14:25):
so check out the book. You'll learn a
lot from it, and devin... Hold on a
few more minutes, and we're gonna give away
your book here.
In the next few minutes, so stick around.
But, unfortunately, we gotta wrap this up. And
when we return.
We will be giving away a 1 year
membership to fly issues international and 1 year
your membership to child unlimited. And a copy

(01:14:47):
of Devin books still butterfly fishing, competition,
inspired strategies for everyday anglers english. So hang
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(01:15:07):
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and they need your help. With your support,
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(01:15:28):
Again, that's BTT
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(01:15:50):
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Okay.

(01:16:10):
If you are the 1 of the luck
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(01:16:31):
let's see.
Our, okay.
Database spit out Brad Home in California, Brad
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And

(01:16:51):
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our winner there is Richard Sc,
Richard Sk, in Ohio. So
congratulations,
gentlemen on winning tonight, and
thanks for
thanks for playing.

(01:17:11):
Now let's give away Devin book. Don't if
Answer question.
And the first person that answers it correctly
will win Devin new book. So the question
is, we talked a lot, Devon explained thoroughly
about food webs, and there were 2 zones
he talked about? 2 zones. What are those

(01:17:32):
2 zones? Name those 2 zones.
And
and you'll be a winner of the book.
Now, Devon that takes a minute for them
to hear that because there's slight delay
And and then they have to type in
the answer. So, well, we've got to fill
a bit of time here.
What well, I'm still here. So... Because you're

(01:17:55):
are I'm always capable of spewing, spewing
nonsensical information. So you you could do with
what you wanna know.
Yeah. Well, need you need to go. You
start spelling all those scientific terms so that
we can get those.
You lost me along... I got... They... They
were probably biology 01:01 terms, but, you lost

(01:18:16):
me
there. Let me see what...
Okay. Yeah. We got 1
Cathy
Williams.
Cathy Williams and
in Mister Ohio says lateral.
Well, she says lateral and
she didn't spell them. I think she's she's
got the answer right.

(01:18:38):
What do you think, ladder pro p.
So.
Area it'd be lit,
LI2 yeah RAL.
Yeah. Would do you think should we give
her the book? Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's
That's, I think, close enough. So, Kathy, you're
the proud winner of Devin new books to

(01:18:59):
butterfly fishing. So Kathy in that same form,
send me your shipping address.
Got your email I got your name. I
just need your shipping address, and then we'll
get stack to ship you out a copy
of of Devin new book. So And thanks
for paying attention, taking good notes and
congratulations on winning.
Well, Devin, I really appreciate you being on
the show again with me. It's always a

(01:19:21):
pleasure. I always learned so much, and that
you always leave me wanting more. So
I'm lucky enough to have a book. So
I'll have to do all my studying. Thanks
again for being on the show.
Yep. You're welcome, roger. I hope everybody enjoyed
it. And if they have
You know, further questions saying can turn the
book, or they send me an email at

(01:19:41):
the at the shop at tactical 5 dot
com. So
Okay. Sounds good. That's great offer from you.
And
let me
just
take it from there, our next show
will be on
August seventh,
and

(01:20:02):
Yeah. On August second, 7PM Mountain Pm Eastern
time. On that I'm gonna be interviewing Jim
Sla, and it shows it's gonna be Cats
to the Madison River rivera.
Jim is the mastermind behind the iconic s
fly. So you'll learn how about his journey
from the Cats skills to the banks of
the Madison River. His expertise in traditional 5
tying and his role conservation. So they'll miss

(01:20:23):
this chance here. 1 of the most influential
figures in 5 fishing. Discover the secrets behind
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and educational
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(01:20:44):
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(01:21:06):
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That's it. The night everyone and.